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'REW JOHNSON AND THE EARLY 
PHASES OF THE HOMESTEAD BILL 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS READ BEFORE THE MISSIS- 
SIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. AT 

ST. PAI;L. may 9. 1918 



BY 



ST. GEORGE L; SIOUSSAT 




Reprinted from the Mississippi 
V ALLEY Historical Review 
Vol V, No. 3, Dec, 1918 



1 

4 



L 667 



[Reprinted from the Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Vol. V, No. 8, Dec, 1B18] 



ANDREW JOHNSON AND THE EARLY PHASES OF THE 
HOMESTEAD BILL^ 

In the Earl of Durham's "Report upon the affairs of British 
North America," published in the Parliamentary papers for 
1839, the problems of public lands and emigration were taken 
under consideration, and the following judgment, by way of 
comparison with conditions in Canada, was expressed as to the 
administration of the public domain of the United States. 

"The system of the United States appears to combine all the 
chief requisites of the greatest efficiency. It is uniform through- 
out the vast federation ; it is unchangeable save by Congress and 
never has been materially altered; it renders the acquisition of 
new land easy, and yet, by means of a price, restricts appropria- 
tion to the actual wants of the settler; it is so simple as to be 
readily understood ; it provides for accurate surveys and against 
needless delays ; it gives an instant and secure title ; and it ad- 
mits of no favoritism, but distributes the public property among 
all classes and persons upon precisely equal terms. That system 
has promoted an amount of immigration and settlement of which 
the history of the world affords no other example, and it has 
produced to the United States a revenue which has averaged 
about a half-million sterling per annum, and which has amounted 
in one twelve months to about four million sterling or more than 
the whole expenditure of the federal government. ' ' ^ 

1 This paper was the presidential address read at the annual meeting of the Mis- 
sissippi valley historical association at St. Paul, May 9, 1918. 

2 "Reports on the affairs of British North America from the Earl of Durham, 
Her Majesty's high commissioner," in Parliamentary papers, session of 1839, 17: 74. 



254 St. George L. Sioussat ^- V- h. r. 

In contrast with the very favorable opinion of the British 
commissioner may be cited another, which likewise had its origin 
from without the limits of the United States. In a letter ad- 
dressed to his brother-in-law, James F. Perry, in March, 1830, 
Stephen F. Austin, then colonizing Texas under the jurisdiction 
of the Mexican government, wrote as follows : 

*'We have nothing to fear from this [the Mexican] govt, nor 
from any other quarter except from the United States of the 
north. If that govt, should get hold of us and introduce its land 
system, etc., etc., thousands who are now on the move and who 
have not yet secured their titles would be totally ruined. The 
greatest misfortune that could befall Texas at this moment 
would be a sudden change by which any of the emigrants would 
be thrown upon the liberality of the Congress of the United 
States of the North. Theirs would he a most forlorn Jiope."^ 

These strongly opposing comments of the thirties illustrate 
respectively two points of view of great significance in the his- 
tory of the public lands of the United States : the point of view 
of the thickly settled, capitalistic part of the country, and the 
point of view of the frontier. The clashing of these two points 
of view goes back to very early times in the history of America, 
and an understanding of the controverted issues is essential to 
the purpose of this paper. 

In the fateful years which brought to a close the exercise of 
authority in America by the British government there was mani- 
fest a vivid contrast between the actualities of American life 
and the plans of the British ministry. This was true particularly 
of the system of granting lands in those colonies which were 
under the direct control of the crown. Among the arguments 
which found the support of government was that which urged 
the danger of depopulating Great Britain and Ireland through 
emigration. The fear was expressed that if colonial population 
in America increased, manufactures would start up in the pos- 
sessions to the detriment of British interests. On the other hand 
it was pointed out that to restrict to the region east of the moun- 

The passage was cited by Senator Felch of Michigan, Congressional globe, 31 con- 
gress, 2 session, appendix, 103 ff. 

3 Stephen F. Austin to James F. Perry, March 28, 1830, in Austin papers, univer- 
sity of Texas. For his kind permission to use this passage, and for bibliographical 
suggestions, I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. E. C. Barker. 






ulIt 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andreiv Johnson and the Homestead Bill 255 

tains the granting of lands, which had been the policy of the 
government since 1763, might bring abont in the east a density 
of population that would render more likely the development of 
colonial manufactures, while the opening of the west to free set- 
tlement would prevent this danger. In 1774, the British govern- 
ment put into effect a new land policy which looked towards the 
definite end of procuring, by a system of surveys and sales, an 
increased revenue from the lands subject to disposition by the 
king. That the establishment of the new regulations as to sur- 
veys and sales came too late and that the system could not be put 
into effect was the opinion of many of the royal officials. That it 
was unwise Burke maintained in his famous speech on concilia- 
tion with America. That it was illegal was the theory of Thomas 
Jefferson, w^hose ''Summary view" contains a somewhat anti- 
quarian but none the less radical argument as to the limitation 
of the king's right to determine at all the conditions of granting 
land in America. Meanwhile, in direct antithesis to the new 
royal policy was the hard fact that already men were swarming 
over the mountains into the Ohio valley and seating themselves 
upon the land, with a title if they could get one, without a title 
if they could not.* 

The contrasts which have been suggested — the opposition 
between the policy of financial gain and the practical issue of 
rapid settlement, the effort to control by a system the conflicting 
interests of different regions, and the misunderstanding of one 
region by another — very shortly reappeared in full intensity 
both in the new states which had lands to administer and in the 
public domain which resulted from the cessions of claims of 
states to the United States; and in the public domain, partic- 
ularly, these disputes and difficulties continued for many gen- 
erations. The earlier phases of this development may here be 
passed over.^ Between sections and leaders there developed of 

4 The land policy of the British government in its many phases, with the closely 
related topics of Indian relations and transmontane settlement, has received ex- 
haustive treatment in the recent work of Clarence W. Alvord, Tlie Mississippi val- 
ley in British politics: a study of the trade, land specul-ation, and experiments in 
imperialism culminating in the American revolution (Cleveland, 1917). A general 
reference may likewise be made to Miss Amelia C. Ford's Colonial precedents of our 
national land system as it existed in 1800 ([Madison], 1910). 

3 Thomas Donaldson, The public domain: its history, with statistics, with refer- 
ences to the national domain, colonization, acquirement of territory, the survey, ad- 



256 St. George L. Sioussat m. v. h. e. 

necessity plans of compromise, and, beginning with the period 
of the thirties, we may notice briefly three policies laid before 
the American people. 

There was, first, the scheme of Henry Clay, — to sell the lands 
in the west at a price, and to distribute the greater part of the 
net proceeds from the sales of these lands among all the states 
of the union. This plan, dear to the whig party and to the east- 
ern manufacturing states in particular, was intimately related 
in Clay's thought to the desirability of a protective tariff and 
the undertaking of internal improvements by the federal gov- 
ernment. Another plan was that supported by Calhoun, who, 
abominating both the protective system and internal improve- 
ments, wished to lessen also the influence of the federal govern- 
ment through its possession of the land and to this end urged 
that those parts of the domain which lay within the bounds of 
organized states should be surrendered to those states. This 
latter plan was never adopted; but, in combination with other 
proposals, it made various ghostly appearances long after itg 
most important advocate had passed from the scene. The third 
scheme of primary importance and of chief interest to the stu- 
dent of western history, was the one with which the name of 
Thomas Hart Benton is inseparably connected. In this plan 
there were several elements. Born in a systemj^ich presup- 
posed a financial purpose, Benton's plan assume^Tthat the lands 
in the west were to be sold. But it urged, first, that the occu- 
pant or ''squatter" who had anticipated the legal sale of the 
land and settled upon it in violation of law, should be protected 
and should have the first right to buy at the minimum price. 
Hence the successive preemption laws. Secondly, it was Ben- 
ton's idea that the amount of time for which land that had been 
offered for sale remained unsold constituted a criterion of the 
quality of the land. He therefore presented and persistently 
supported a plan for the graduation and reduction of the price 
of the unsold lands according to which plan lands that had failed 
for a certain number of years to sell at the minimum price of 

ministration and several methods of sale and disposition of the puhlic domain of the 
United States (Washington, 1884) ; Shosuke Sato, History of the land question in the 
United States (Johns Hopkins university Studies in historical and political science, 
fourth series, vii-ix, Baltimore, 1886) ; Payson J. Treat, The n-ational land system, 
1785-1820 (New York, 1910). 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead Bill 257 

$1.25 per acre should be offered at a less amount. Those not 
sold at this lower price after another period of time should be 
offered again at a rat(^ still further reduced. Thirdly, Benton 
urged that the land which would not sell at all — that which he 
called ** refuse" land — should be given free of charge to occu- 
\pants.° 

In another place ^ I have endeavored to show to what a great 
extent these ideas of Benton were derived from the experience 
of Tennessee, the state in which Benton's earlier political career 
was cast, the state which though it had teclinically been in the 
public domain was by force of its peculiar history in relation to 
North Carolina not of it. Here it is unnecessary to elaborate 
upon this point: but it may be pointed out that just as New 
Englanders, with New England ideas, spread themselves west- 
Avard,^ so both hundreds of people and individual leaders passed 
out of Tennessee not only into Missouri, but into Arkansas, 
Louisiana and Texas, and carried with them their ways of look- 
ing at things. By way of example one may point to the Seviers 
and Conways of Arkansas, to Sam Houston of Texas, and to 
Gwin of California. Moreover, in what we may call the Ten- 
nessee regime of the democratic party, the era of Jackson and 
Polk, the plan of Benton received the support of the national 
administration.^ Benton's "log cabin" bill, first brought up in 
1824 and expanded in 1826, was unsuccessfully urged for fifteen 
years, though various stages of preemption were gone through. 
Both Jackson and Van Buren, however, approved his plan ; and 
the graduation principle was adopted by the executive in treaties 
with the Indians where lands were to be sold.^° In 1841, as an 

6 Raynor G. Wellington, The political and sectional influence of the public lands, 
1828-1842 ([Cambmlge], 1914). 

7 St. George L. Sioussat, "Some phases of Tennessee polities in the Jackson 
period," in American historical reviciv, 14: 51. 

8 Lois K. Mathews, The expansion of New England, the spread of New England 
settlement and institutions to the Mississippi river, 16S0-1865 (Boston, 1909), chs. 
1, 6-10. 

9 While Henry Clay consistently opposed Benton 's scheme, it received at different 
times partial support from Daniel Webster. See Congressional debates, 4: part 1: 660, 
666, 674, and Worlcs of Daniel Webster (fifth edition — Boston, 1853), 4:391 ff., 
523 ff ; 5: 386. It was James Madison, Webster said, who had called his attention to 
the importance of the public lands. 

10 Cliarles J. Kappler, Indian treaties (Washington, 1904); Chickasaw, 1832, 2: 
359 ; Chickasaw, 1834, 2 : 421-422, Chippewa, 1838, 2 : 516-517. 



258 St. George L. Sioussat m. v. h. r. 

outcome of the whig victory in the election of 1840, a hybrid law 
was passed" which brought into temporary activity Clay's plan 
of distribution and into permanent force the preemption part of 
Benton's scheme/^ By reason of the peculiar relation of this 
matter to the whig tariff policy, and because of the grand fiasco 
which overtook the whigs on the death of General Harrison, the 
distribution plan automatically ceased and the efforts to bring 
it into existence again did not succeed though distribution like 
Calhoun's cession to the states lifted its head at various times 
thereafter.^^ 

For the next two or three years no land measures were en- 
acted comparable to the law of 1841. But in the second congress 
of Tyler's administration, — the twenty-eighth congress, — which 
assembled in 1843, there was a democratic house of representa- 
tives ; and in this congress the plan of graduation and reduction, 
which in the thirties had been the chief rival of distribution, 
made its appearance anew. Henceforth, the graduation bill was 
a hardy annual, until in the session of 1853-1854 it at last be- 
came a law. 

At least for the earlier part of the Polk administration this 
bill was pressed as an administration measure. In the first 
session of the twenty-eighth congress the bill was introduced in 
the senate by Robert J. Walker of Mississippi and in the house 
by Houston of Alabama. At this time there was little debate. 
In the campaign of 1844 the Texas and Oregon questions, with 
that of the tariff, over-shadowed all others. When the election 
was over the bill was vigorously debated in the house of repre- 
sentatives.^* After Polk became president he appointed Shields 
of Illinois commissioner of the land office, a position which fell 
within the department of the treasury, the head of which, Robert 
J. Walker, was a prominent supporter of the graduation plan.^^ 
When the twenty-ninth congress assembled. Shields in his an- 
nual report. Walker in his communication as secretary, and the 

11 Approved September 4, 1841. United States statutes at large, 5: 453. 

12 Andrew Jackson, at this time in retirement at the Hermitage, asked his friend 
F. P. Blair to thank Benton for the log cabin bill. Jackson to F. P. Blair, 1841, 115 
Jackson papers, library of congress. 

13 George M. Stephenson, Political history of the public lands, from 1840 to 1863, 
from pre-emption to homestead (Boston, 1917), ch. 6. 

14 Congressional globe, 28 congress, 2 session, 21, 50-53, 69-72, 82-84, 240, 248. 

15 Walker is one of those to whom the authorship of the homestead principle has 
been attributed. 



Voi.A^, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead Bill 259 

president in his message/" all urged the expediency of putting 
into force at once the graduation of the price of the public lands. 
Introduced in both houses at the beginning of the session the bill 
was postponed, but later Breese, chairman of the committee on 
public lands in the senate, and McClernand, who held a similar 
position in the house, each pushed the measure/^ The bill passed 
the senate by a vote that followed pretty distinctly party lines: 
the democrats for the bill and the whigs opposing it.^" This bill 
was then sent to the house which had been somewhat sharply 
debating a bill of its own. The house laid aside its own bill and 
passed the senate bill with amendments ])y a close vote.^" The 
length of the graduation period did not suit the house, so it was 
sent back to the senate with amendments. The senate tinkered 
with it further and when it went back to the house the second time 
it was laid on the table a few days before the close of the ses- 
sion.^^ 

An examination of the legislative course of the bill brings 
out two observations of interest. In the first place, in congress 
also the bill w^as claimed as an administration measure. The 
preceding year, just after the election, McClernand, pleading 
for the graduation bill, had maintained that the victory of Polk 
showed that the people demanded the bill." Now Bowlin of 
Missouri again made this a direct appeal. It was, he said, one 
of the great issues in the contest of 1844 and stood in contra- 
distinction to the whig scheme of distribution. The people had 
decided in favor of graduation, the president had brought it be- 
fore congress. Keferring to Texas, Oregon, the tariff and the 
independent treasury, he said, "The four first great acts of the 
political drama have been passed. What Democrat is prepared 
to make a stumbling block of the fifth?"" This assertion that 
the bill was distinctly a party test was not unquestioned,^^ but 

16 The statements of each of the three men may be foiuKl, ihid., 29 congress, 1 
session, appendix: Polk's message, 7; Walker's, 12; Shields', .'?9 ff. 

17 Congressional globe, 29 congress, 1 session, 45, 86, 953, 967, 988, 1040, 1057 fif. 
The speech of McClernand of Ohio, July 10, 1846, is in Hid., 29 congress, 2 session, 
appendix, 33. 

18 Ibid., 29 congress, 1 session, 1073. 
■^9 Ibid., 1075, 1094. 

20 Ibid., 1195. 

21 Ibid., 28 congress, 2 session, 72. 

22 Ibid., 29 congress, 1 session, 1061-1062. 

23 Remarks of Vinton of Ohio, ibid., 1076. 



260 St. George L. Sioussat m.v.h.e. 

the votes in both senate and house bear out the general accuracy 
of the claim. In the second place, however, there developed an 
important exception to the support of the democratic side which, 
together with the absence of many members, appears to have 
been the cause of the final defeat in the house. This was the op- 
position of many democrats of the eastern states who joined 
with the whigs :" an alignment which had been predicted in the 
course of the debate. This attitude of the eastern democrats 
was of course not new ; it had been manifest in the controversies 
of 1838 and 1839. But its reappearance now at the very time of 
the introduction of the Wilmot proviso is significant. On the 
other hand it is worthy of note that most of the democrats of the 
old south, including the South Carolina contingent, were found 
ranged with those of the southwest and the northwest, in com- 
mon support of the bill against the whig opposition.^^ 

To follow briefly the course of the graduation bill : in the se- 
cond session of the twenty-ninth congress Polk, besides recom- 
mending graduation in his first message, sent in a special mes- 
sage,-^ saying that the enactment of the measure would increase 
the revenue from the public lands, which was needed for the 
prosecution of the war wdth Mexico. The graduation bill was 
again introduced, but more significant was the effort of the com- 
mittee on ways and means to embody the graduation principle 
in a revenue bill.^^ In both forms the proposed legislation 
failed. Besides other disturbing forces, the absorption of in- 
terest by the bounty law of 1847 ^^ which offered warrants for 
land to the soldiers and officers of the Mexican war, rendered 
less likely than before the passage of the graduation bill. The 
effect of the bounty law naturally was to take from the domain 
hundreds of thousands of acres. A sharp division between east 
and west appeared in the insistence on the part of the west that 
the warrant holders should become settlers, and in the objection 

2*Eemarks of Henley, ibid., 1071. 

25 lUd., 1069, 1073, 1179. In 1837-1839, when Van Buren was urging graduation, 
the bill passed the senate and failed in the house. Then Calhoun and his followers 
were in opi)Osition. (Wellington, The 'political and sectional influence of the public 
lands, 68-73.) Now Calhoun and Benton supported the bill. This makes the more 
marked the position of the eastern democrats. 

2c 4 Tdchardson (U. S.), 516, February 13, 1847. 

27 Congressional globe, 29 congress, 2 session, 440, 536 ff. 

2? United States statutes at large, 9 : 123 ; ef . Stephenson, Political history of the 
public lands, from 1840 to 1862, from pre-emption to homestead, ch. 9. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead Bill 261 

of eastern men that the east should not be depopulated in order 
that the west might he settled. ^'^ The honiity act was important 
not merely for itself but because it initiated the policy of thus 
granting lands, a policy which was continued through the acts 
of 1850, 1852, and 1857. The cause of the graduation bill in the 
thirtieth congress was hopeless, for the whigs controlled the 
house of representatives. The outstanding feature of these 
years was an able report by Collamer of Vermont against the 
graduation policy.^" When the thirty-first congress met in 
1849, although the administration was whig, the democrats re- 
gained control of the organization of both houses, and the grad- 
uation bill appeared again. Bowlin of Missouri was chairman 
of the committee on public lands in the house of representatives 
and Felch of Michigan in charge of the same committee in the 
senate. In the thirty-second congress, W. P. Hall, a democrat 
from Missouri, succeeded Bowlin, while Felch continued. The 
thirty-third congress once more saw both houses of congress and 
the executive department under democratic control. Dodge of 
Iowa was chairman of the senate committee and Disney of Ohio 
chairman of that of the house. In the first session of this con- 
gress the graduation and reduction bill became law. 

Like most of the land measures that were proposed, the plan 
of graduation and reduction was in reality an effort to effect a 
compromise between the principle of revenue and the interests 
of the actual settlers. The same statement may be made as to 
the concession of the right of preemption, particularly as em- 
bodied in the act of 1841. Under this law and those which had 
preceded it, the settler was favored in that he had the right to 
buy at the lowest government price. The government, however, 
received a revenue from the land though this revenue w^as dimin- 
ished by the difference between the minimum price and that 
which the land might have brought at auction. The settlers were 
dissatisfied with the act of 1841 ; they asked for a general pro- 
spective preemption which should apply to the unsurveyed pub- 
lic domain as well as to that which had been surveyed, or for an 
extension of the time for making payments on preempted lands. 
The latter concession, if granted, would have been equivalent to 
a reestablishment, in part, of the former credit system.'^ 

29 Eeniarks of Perry of Maryland, Congressional glohe, 29 congress, 2 session, 254. 

30 Beports of the house of representatives, 30 congress, 1 session, no. 732. 

31 Steplienson, Political history of the puhlic lands, from 1S40 to 1862, from pre- 



262 St. George L. Sioussat m. v. h. e. 

But the demand had been heard for more than this, for more 
than a mere compromise. That the government should give land 
outright to actual settlers and surrender entirely the seeking of 
revenue, was no new idea. The head rights of Virginia and other 
colonies were a precedent of sufficient antiquity, and many gifts 
had been made by the government of the United States to indi- 
viduals.^^ A distinction must be drawn, however, between free 
gifts of land to actual settlers, either those already seated or 
prospective occupants, and grants of lands that involved some 
service rendered in return. This will serve to distinguish the 
real homestead grant from the many forms of bounties given for 
military service or some return to the government wdiich might 
be considered a fair compensation. Thus, as far back as 1840 
the settlers in Oregon had petitioned for donations of land,^^ and 
ten years later, after much debate, such grants were made.^* In 
the meantime similar gifts were made to settlers in Florida.^^ In 
both these cases it was considered that a special return was ren- 
dered to the government either because the recipients were hold- 
ing the ground in so distant a region as Oregon or because they 
were acting as a defense against the Indians, as in Florida. The 
multiform grants to the states were likewise justified upon a 
theory of compensation.^'' But the homestead plan asked the 
government to give away the public lands and sacrifice all direct 
revenue therefrom at a time when the settlement of the west was 
no longer uncertain. However strong the arguments for home- 
steads was it was not the advantage to the government that was 
the most convincing. 

Having made this distinction between the homestead idea and 
the grant for military or other service, I wish to attempt a sim- 

emption to homestead, 97-103. Cf. many petitions to congress in House of repre- 
sentatives papers (manuscripts), in library of congress, packages marked "Wisconsin 
public lands," 1843-1847, 1845-1848. 

32 Ford, Colonial precedents of our national land system as it existed in 1800, ch. 
6; Treat, The national land system, 178S-18S0, ch. 12. 

33 Senate documents, 26 congress, 1 session, 514; Congressional globe, 26 congress, 
1 session, 60, 103, 296. 

34 Act approved September 27, 1850. United States statutes at large, 9:496ff. 

35 Act of August 4, 1842. Ibid., 5: 502. 

36 Matthias N. Orfield, Federal land grants to the states with special reference to 
Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1915). See also Treat, The national land system, 1785- 
18S0, ch. 11. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson mid the Homestead BUI 263 

ilar delimitation between the strict homestead of good land and 
Benton's idea, which persisted throuf^hont the following period, 
of giving to actual settlers either directly or through the states 
the "refuse" land. This was one part of the "log cabin" ))ill. 
The idea, no doubt, found a special development in Tennessee 
where occupants or squatters had settled upon poor lands or odd 
bits of land not covered by North Carolina warrants. In the fed- 
eral land system Benton wished to make provision for those un- 
able to buy at the land sales even after the pi'ice had been grad- 
uated and reduced. As to Tennessee the idea was pressed in 
congress by David Crockett, in opposition to the rest of the Ten- 
nessee delegation, who asked permission to sell refuse lands in 
Tennessee for the benefit of schools. Finally these lands w^ere 
given to Tennessee. ^^ 

A somewhat different phenomenon appeared in another south- 
western state. In his Biographical and pictorial history of 
Arkansas, Hallum^^ claims that the origin of the homestead pol- 
icy goes back to Governor E. N. Conway of Arkansas, at one 
time federal auditor. It appears that but few soldiers settled 
on the lands granted to them in Arkansas and these lands were 
sold by the state for nonpayment of taxes. The burden of the 
back taxes was sometimes so large that no one would buy the 
lands, and they remained on the hands of the state. In 1840 
Conway recommended that "a law be passed donating to every 
individual who would settle upon and improve a quarter sec- 
tion of such land, the right of the state thereto, conditioned that 
the taxes afterwards accruing upon the land thus occupied 
should be regularly paid, or the land and improvements there- 
on should revert to the state and remain subject to private sale." 
"Were such a law passed," he continued, "and the lands thus 
donated, whilst held under such titles only, exempted from exe- 
cution of sale for any other debts than state and county taxes, 
it is the humble opinion of the auditor that the military district 
would in a few years be greatly improved and the revenue aug- 
mented. Persons not wishing to avail themselves of the bene- 
fits of such a law should be allowed as they now are, to purchase 
at private sales, lands which had once been offered at public 

37 Ibid., 353. 

38 John Hallum, Bioc/raphical and pictorial hl<itory of Arkansas (Albany, 1887), 
55. 



264 .S"^. George L. Sioussat m. v. h. r. 

auction by the auditor and remained unused and not donated. ' ' ^^ 
Two years later Conway reported to the assembly that many 
persons had availed themselves of the benefits of the law*° 
passed by the last legislature, so that "some of these wild lands 
heretofore uninhabited, uncultivated and producing no revenue 
have become changed to the home of industrious and enterpris- 
ing persons who settled, improved, and will cultivate them." 

With due local pride Hallum says that Conway's recommen- 
dation was copied by the press of every state in the union and 
commendatory letters were received by him from many persons 
of authority. He concludes that Andrew Johnson, "the greatest 
of national humbugs," appropriated the idea. In deferring 
judgment on this opinion we may recall that Conway, like Ben- 
ton, w^as a representative of the westward emigration from 
Tennessee. 

But the most impressive example of a liberal land policy was 
brought to the attention of the frontiersmen of the United 
States through the settlement of Texas across the southwestern 
border. The impresario Stephen F. Austin gave especial care 
to the establishment of a land system. His original proposals 
to the Spanish governor of Texas looked to grants of a moder- 
ate size, but the colonization law of January 4, 1823, under 
which, on February 18 of the same year, the Emperor Iturbide 
approved Austin's petition to settle three hundred families, 
vastly augmented the grants to be made to settlers. Austin was 
empowered to grant headrights of a league (4,428 acres) of 

39 State of Arkansas, House journal, 1840, p. 27. 

ioihid., 1842, appendix, 20. The act is in Laws of Arkansas, 1840, 60 flf. From 
a memorial of the state of Arkansas to congress, approved December 16, 1838, may 
be cited the following passage, which excellently illustrates the western point of 
view. The assembly was urging the passage of a general preemption law. ' ' The 
pioneer of the western wilds is not a lawless intruder, who settles upon the lands of 
the government with the unrighteous design of robbing the public and obtaining by 
trespass a claim against the government. He is in truth the greatest benefactor of 
the public. Had it not been for his adventurous and daring spirit, had no man ever 
settled upon the public lands until he had purchased it, civilization would not at this 
day have reached the Mississippi, and tlie fairest part of our land would still remain 
an unsettled wilderness. Tlie wealthy, those wlio have the means to purchase their 
thousands of acres of tlie government, those who have the capital to interest in labor, 
and the means to open extensive farms and plantations, are not the men to penetrate 
the wilderness. The pioneer must first, with his axe and rifle, open the path. The 
country must be somewhat settled before there arises any demand for the public 
lands. ' ' 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andreiv Johnson and the Jlojiirsfcnd Bill 265 

grazing lands and a hihor (177 aei-es) of faniiinic lands to eafh 
head of a family; ^vhile impresarios who brought in settlers 
were to receive 66,774 acres for every two hundred families. 
With the severest exertion Austin managed to retain his priv- 
ileges through the uncertain course of Mexican politics. Within 
his colony there was difficulty ovci- the cliarge of twelve and one- 
half cents an acre which Austin insisted on writing into his 
contracts, though his grant from the government made no ref- 
erence to such payments. This small fee Austin felt to be nec- 
essary and just, because otherwise he would receive nothing to 
cover the cost of the careful surveys and records which he made, 
together with his requirement of the proof of the good character 
of intending settlers, essential parts of his plan of colonization. 
With the military phases which of necessity marked the Texas 
revolution, the plan of bounties which had been so prominent a 
feature in the United States made its appearance. By the con- 
stitution adopted in 1836, all persons living in the republic at 
the time of the declaration of independence were to be consid- 
ered citizens, and anyone who had not received his portion of 
land could claim, if a head of a family, a league and a labor, or 
if a single man, one-third of a league. By legislation the head- 
right system was extended to later volunteers in the revolution. 
In 1837 a land office was established with a series of minute 
regulations. Various "prices" were attached to the fulfillment 
of these grants, but as these ran from one dollar and fifty cents 
to seven dollars for a labor of 177 acres, it is evident that the 
land was practically given away. In 1839 immigrants were of- 
fered smaller amounts, 640 acres to heads of families, and half 
that to single men, conditioned on three years of residence. Later 
there was superadded the requirement that ten acres of land 
must be cultivated, and the locations surveyed and marked. 
Such were the opportunities to acquire lands in Texas in the 
forties.*^ 

*i For the development of the land system of Texas see D. C. Wooten, Compre- 
hensive history of Teocas, 1685-1897 (Dallas, 1898), 1: 784-848; and for the earlier 
period — that of Austin's management — two papers by Eugene C. Barker, "The 
government of Austin's colony, 1821-1831," in Southtcestcrn historical quarterhj, 
21: 223-252, and "Stephen F. Austin," in Mississippi V.\i-i.ey Historical Review, 
5: 20-35. The laws may be studied in Laws of Texas, 1822-1905, edited by Hans 
P. N. Gammell (Austin, 1898-1904) ; John and Henry Sayles, EarJxi laws of Texas 
(St. Louis, 1888) ; and James W. Dallam, A digest of the laws of Texas, containing 



266 St. George L. Sioussat ^^- ^^- H- s. 

It may fairly be claimed, then, that western experience and 
traditions made entirely intelligible the request that land be 
given to the actual settler without the demand of a price, and 
that there would be no difficult transition from Benton's pro- 
posed gift of poor land to that which promised to the settler the 
best land, however much opposed to the revenue policy the lat- 
ter might be. Thus there was a distinctly western origin or 
approach to the homestead bill. But, while this might easily 
have commanded the votes of all the senators and representa- 
tives of those states which still retained the characteristics of 
the frontier, or whose ties with the frontier remained partic- 
ularly close, it would never have succeeded in overcoming the 
financial hostility both of the eastern states and of those states 
originally western that through denser settlement and the occu- 
pation of all their good lands were likely to become more and 
more disposed toward the eastern point of view. As to the 
western origin of the homestead legislation, one finds, as might 
be expected, that this measure had its beginning in association 
with the bill for graduating and reducing the price of the public 
lands and that this association was a necessary one. But it re- 
mains to be seen how men of the east who consistently opposed 
graduation and reduction came over, at least on the part of 
considerable groups, to the active support of the homestead bill. 

In the spring of 1844 a group of individuals w^ho described 
themselves as the central committee of the "National reform 
association" addressed a letter to James K. Polk, as a ''candi- 
date for public office" to solicit an expression of his views on a 
subject which, they thought, vitally affected the rights and in- 
terests of their constituents. They proceeded to say, 

''We see this singular condition of affairs: that, while wealth 
in our country is rapidly accumulating; while internal improve- 
ments of every description are fast increasing, and while machin- 
ery has multiplied the power of production to an immense ex- 
tent; yet, with all these national advantages, the compensation 
for useful labor is getting less and less. We seek the cause of 
this anomaly, and we trace it to the monopoly of the land, which 
places labor at the mercy of capital. We therefore desire to 
abolish the monopoly, not by interfering with the conventional 

o full and complete compilation of the land laws together with the opinions of the 
supreme court from 1840 to 1844 inclusive (Austin, 1904). 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead Bill 267 

rights of persons now in possession of the land, but by arresting 
the further sale of all lands not yet appropriated as private 
property, and by allowing these lands hei-eai'ter to be freely 
occupied by those who may choose to settle on them. We pro- 
pose that the Public Lands hereafter shall not be owned, but 
occupied only, the occupant having the right to sell or otherwise 
dispose of improvements to any one not in possession of other 
land ; so that, by preventing any individual from becoming pos- 
sessed of more than a limited quantity, every one may enjoy the 
right. 

''This measure, we think, would gradually establish an equi- 
librium between the agricultural and other useful occupations, 
that would insure to all full employment and fair compensation 
for their labor, on the lands now held as private property ; and 
to each individual on the public lands the right to work for him- 
self on his premises, or for another, at his option."*^ 

In the brief endorsement — ''not worthy of an answer" — 
which Polk made upon this document, one senses immediately 
his feeling that this was a radicalism not to be encouraged. But 
to students of economic history the development of the labor 
movement in the United States and the radical doctrines of the 
land reformers of the eastern states have formed an inviting 
field for investigation. As this field has been thoroughly ex- 
ploited by Mr. John R. Commons and his associates, both in the 
Documentary history of American industrial society and very 
recently in the History of labour in the United States, we need 
here only with great brevity recall the increasing activity, in 
the midst of a sharply pressing conflict of wages and prices, of 
the labor movement of the second quarter of the nineteenth 
century, and the influence, in the propagation of a doctrine of 
land reform,^^ of such men, largely of English and Irish extrac- 

42 Polk papers, library of congress, vol. 56. The letter, dated at New York, 
April 20, 1844, was signed by eight persons, among whom were George H. Evans and 
Lewis Masqiierier. 

43 The earlier agrarian movement is discussed by Miss Helen L. Sumner in .Tohn 
E. Commons and associates, History of labour in tlie United States (New York, 
1918), 1: 234 ff. There was also a land reform group of German origin, of whom the 
leading spirit was Herman Kriege. Henry E. Hoagland, ibid., 1: 534-535. See 
also Documentary history of American industrial soci<'ty, edited by John R. Com- 
mons and associates (Cleveland, 1910-1911), 7: 310-312, for documents illustrating 
the attitude of the German group in 1845. 



268 St. George L. Sioussat m.v.h.k. 

tion, as Thomas Skidmore, Thomas Spence, George Henry 
Evans, and Thomas Ainge Devyr. 

When to the feeble presses started by these radicals of the 
east there was added as the medium of a convert the great news- 
paper of Horace Greeley, the cause of land reform was much 
advanced. The decade of the forties was a decade of '4sms," 
of which Horace Greeley was the prophet. As Mr. Commons 
pointedly expresses it, "He was the Tribune of the people, the 
spokesman of their discontent, the champion of their nostrums. 
He drew the line only at spirit rappings and free love. ' ' ^* 

Upon Greeley's mind, as upon a sensitive receptive appara- 
tus, there played idealistic influences from two distinct sources. 
The one, which we may call applied transcendentalism, came 
from Massachusetts, and now endeavored to realize itself in 
such experiments as Brook Farm, in 1842. After the next year, 
the representatives of this group identified themselves with the 
interest of the working people, and about the same time, took up 
Brisbane's Americanization of the social philosophy of Fourier, 
and proceeded to the organization of phalanxes with an en- 
thusiasm worthy of a more successful cause.*'^ The other cur- 
rent which influenced Greeley came from the workingmen. Tho- 
mas Spence, an English net-maker, wrote a book advocating 
that "all the land of England should be leased and the proceeds 
divided equally among all the people of England." Spence 's 
ideas exerted some influence upon the first workingmen 's party 
of New York. But the man who more completely interested the 
working classes in the land question was another Englishman 
by the name of George Henry Evans, who came to America in 
time to undergo apprenticeship as a printer, and who, in 1829, 
began the Working Man's Advocate. Evans was a philosopher 
who believed in the "natural right of all men to land, just as to 
sunlight, air and water." As a landless class, the workingmen 
of the east were slaves to a master class which owned their 
means of livelihood. Land reform, he urged, must precede the 
abolition of negro slavery. 

ii Ihid., 7: introduction, 20. This introduction is a reprint of Mr. Commons' 
article, ' ' Horace Greeley and the working class origins of the republican party, ' ' in 
Political science quarterly, 24: no. 3. Examples of Greeley's editorials are given in 
Documentary history of American iyidustrial society (Commons and associates ed.), 
8: 40-44. 

i^'Ihid., 7: introduction, 26-28. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead BUI 269 

Evans differed from the coniniunists in his cnipiiasis upon the 
individual rig'ht to the soil. The panic of 1837 gave a temporary 
setback to tlie hxbor movement. When more encouraging times 
appeared, Evans resurrected his paper under the name of 
Young America and organized a party known as tlie national 
reformers. To this propaganda belongs the celebrated pam- 
phlet "Vote yourself a farm," which, with many other very in- 
teresting documents bearing on this period, Mr. Commons has 
reprinted in the Documentary history of American industrial 
society J'^ Between 1844 and 1848 the agitation of the land re- 
formers made great strides, assisted by the attention which the 
anti-rent riots in New York state called to this particular issue.*^ 

The work was aggressively pushed by the ''industrial con- 

*6 Ibid., 7 : introduction, 29-33. See also ibid., 7 : 288 ff. for important docu- 
ments. Some account of Evans is given by Hoagland in Commons and associates, 
History of labour in the United States, 1 : 522 ff. 

*7 Besides the work of Mr. Commons and his associates there may be consulted 
also the older book of Rudolf E. Meyer, Heimstdtten- und andere Wirtschaftsgesetse 
der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, von Canada, Eussland, China, Indien, Bu- 
mdnien, Serbien und England (Berlin, 1883) ; and St«phenson, Politi<^al history of 
the public lands, from 1840 to 1862, from pre-emption to homestead, 103-113. The 
Van Buren manuscripts in the library of congress contain many important letters, 
especially in relation to the campaign of 1848 ; see particularly Van Buren 's reply to 
the Buffalo convention, 56 Van Buren manuscripts. 

In connection with this subject, some interest attaches to a group of letters which, 
several years later, Andrew Johnson received from Thomas Ainge Devyr, one of the 
most prominent of the land reformers. Devyr wrote from Williamsburg, New York, 
on December 9, 1859, giving Johnson a sketch of the history of the "land reformers" 
organized in New York in 1844. These were nearly all democrats. Devyr had con- 
ducted a democratic paper at Williamsburg at the time. The democratic party 
proved hostile; the Greeley whigs made a show of favoring land reform, and so did 
the Buffalo platform men. Those imposters, wrote Devyr, ' ' stole our thunder ' ' in 
1848, and took nineteen-twentieths of those devoted to the cause. "Ours" was the 
free soil party up to that time. Now (1859), Dev^-r urged the democrats to take 
the matter up again. Devyr added an interesting account of his own history; twenty- 
three years before, lie had published in the north of Ireland a pamphlet rejirinted 
here, and in the chartist movement he had "narrowly" escaped to the United States, 
in 1840. Upon the back of the letter cited Andrew Johnson wrote ' ' Not read as 
yet." On January 1, 1860, Devyr wrote again, sending a printed circular. A third 
letter followed January 8, in which the writer interestingly connects the homest-ead 
agitation with the anti-rent difficulies in New York. Devyr wrote a fourth time 
January 21, addressing Johnson as " general-in-chief " of the cause, and saying that 
he was unwilling to ascribe the neglect of his letters to deliberate intention. John- 
son-Patterson manuscripts in the possession of Mr. A. J. Patterson, of Greenville, 
Tennessee, to whom acknowledgment is made for the permission to consult these 
papers. Some account of Devyr is given by Hoagland in Commons and associates. 
History of labour in the United States, 1 : 532. 



270 St. George L. Sioussat m.v.h.e. 

gress," of which the sessions, beginning in 1845, were held each 
year.^* But the most widely heard voice continued to be that of 
Greeley. 

It is hardly necessary to point out the great difference be- 
tween these ideas and those of Benton. If logically carried out 
the principles of Evans justified the taking of land from monop- 
olists in any part of the world. It was only America's fortu- 
nate possession of a public domain that offered the opportunity 
to press the demand for room for the landless in the yet unset- 
tled region of the west rather than in the crowded east. But it 
is not hard to see how this eastern appeal could be made to apply 
to the west, could spread to the western states and territories 
and would result in the petitions, which, with thousands of names 
attached, were submitted to the congress of the United States. 
But for congress successfully to be persuaded necessitated the 
aggressive activity of men in that body, as well as the exhorta- 
tions of those outside. Within congress the cause of the home- 
stead was taken up and steadily pressed by Andrew Johnson of 
Tennessee, to whose preparation for leadership in this regard 
some attention must now be given. 

The years which Andrew Johnson had lived before his en- 
trance into the house of representatives in 1843 had already 
gone to make up the strong but somewhat uncouth personality 
of the man.*^ Born in 1808 in Ealeigh, North Carolina, at four- 
teen years of age he was ''bound out" to learn the trade of a tail- 
or; and a couple of years later together with an elder brother 
William he was advertised as a runaway from his master. After 
another two years he with his brother and stepfather had 
tramped across the mountains to the upper valley of the Ten- 
nessee, w^here in the long depression between the Alleghany 
mountains and the Cumberland plateau, which extends to the 
northeast far up into Virginia, lies the little town of Greenville. 
Among the treasures of the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, 
the curious visitor may see two old account books much worn 

48 Hoagland treats of the industrial congress in ibid., 1: 547-551. See also the 
masses of petitions in the House of representatives manuscripts, library of con- 
gress, which show the westward movement through Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and 
the influence of the land reformers and tlie industrial congress. 

*» An extended sketch of Andrew Johnson, from a not over-friendly point of view, 
is found in Oliver P. Temple, Notable men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875, their 
times and their contemporaries (New York, 1912). 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead Bill 271 

and battered which were kept by Johnson in connection with 
his tailor shop. They show him k^ndin*^ small sums of money, 
and later performing small commissions on his trips to Wash- 
ington. Unfortunately neither these nor any other sources 
have anything to say about the intellectual life of the young tai- 
lor. From later materials, however, one gathers that there was 
an early development of his oratorical ability, and that he was 
much given to reading, an art which had been painfully acquired. 
One hears nothing of feats of strength like those which gave a 
local celebrity to Lincoln, in whose early career there are indeed 
many elements of similarity. Nor, in Johnson's case does the 
seriousness of life seem to have been relieved by the humour 
which even though rude and rough, rescued Lincoln from the 
melancholy that sometimes overtook him. The earnestness with 
which Johnson felt obliged to defend himself against charges of 
infidelity permits one to suspect that he had perhaps been char- 
acterized by that skepticism of a cruder type which one meets 
in so many cases in the early part of the nineteenth century.^" 
At a later time he showed that he had a considerable acquaint- 
ance with English literature and that if the range of his knowl- 
edge was limited, his mastery of what he had was thorough. 

But his mental activity seems to have found its natural out- 
let in the field of politics. In this field one principle was un- 
doubtedly a guiding force throughout his whole career. This 
was a bitter dislike of the superiority claimed by some men 
or for some men by virtue of greater possessions of wealth 
or more fortunate circumstances of birth. The vehemence 
with which he expressed these views surprises one, for one 
could hardly imagine the quiet town of Greenville or the 
whole valley of East Tennessee to be the theatre of a class 
struggle whether on the basis of birth or wealth. Here, with 
comparatively few slaves, there was none of the manorial 
life that, existing in much dignity and culture in both older 
and newer regions of the south, has so often and so mistak- 
enly been regarded as universal. On the contrary, East Ten- 
nessee was a region of small farms in an upland valley. It was 
not a typical ''poor white" region. One feels, therefore, that 
Johnson's hostility to aristocracy must represent resentment at 

!■•<> See the printed pamiihlct, Letter of Andreiv Johnson to his constituents (Wash- 
ington, 1845), to wliich reference is made below. 



272 *S^^. George L. Sioussat ^- V- n. k. 

the treatment of social inferiority accorded to the poor artisan 
by the well-to-do farmers, and also an element peculiar to John- 
son's own personality. 

Within ten years from the time that Johnson reached Ten- 
nessee he had succeeded in politics to the extent of securing 
election, first to town offices in Greenville, and then as repre- 
sentative in the state legislature. In 1834 Tennessee adopted a 
new constitution. Before the convention came many questions 
of change, such as the demand for an abolition of slavery put 
forth by persons in East Tennessee. The sectionalism of the 
state was strongly marked, as it is to this day, finding a natural 
basis in the division of the state by the Cumberland plateau and 
the Tennessee river. When Johnson entered the lower house 
of the Tennessee assembly, it was at the first session after the 
adoption of the new constitution, when many statutes of semi- 
constitutional nature were debated so that there was an unusu- 
ally good opportunity for a new representative to be educated 
in the practical working of the state government. It was the 
very time also of the revolt against the domination of state poli- 
tics by the friends of General Jackson, out of which, so far as 
Tennessee was concerned, developed the whig party. After a 
period of hesitation Andrew Johnson threw himself whole-heart- 
edly into the service of the regular democratic organization, a 
course which he tenaciously pursued to the time of the civil war. 

Defeated for the next assembly, because, it is said, of opposi- 
tion to internal improvements, Johnson was more successful in 
1839. After another term in the house and one in the senate of 
the assembly, he was elected in 1843 representative in congress 
of the first Tennessee district. But before an attempt is made 
to follow him in his congressional career it will be best briefly to 
consider the work which he had done and the estimate which had 
been placed upon him when he entered national politics. Al- 
ready he had exhibited political ability and force to an extent 
that warranted James K. Polk, chief master of the democratic 
organization in Tennessee, in suggesting Johnson as a possi- 
bility for the senate of the United States." A bitter partisan, 
Johnson shared in the maneuver by which the democrats kept 

51 James K. Polk to Maclin, January 17, 1842. Polk papers, library of con- 
gress. 



Voi.v, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead BUI 273 

the state a couple of years without any United- States senators 
rather than elect a whig. His radical tendencies had already 
manifested themselves in his support of the proposal to form 
East Tennessee into a separate state, a reflection of sectional 
jealousy. But the activity which later was most used abainst 
him was his support of the "white basis" for the arranj^ement 
of the congressional districts in Tennessee. This plan looked to 
the substitution in the arrangement of these districts of an 
apportionment according to the white population alone, in place 
of the existing ''federal" basis, by which five negro slaves were 
to count as three white men. The effect of the change would be 
to give East Tennessee, with its fewer slaves, a larger share of 
the representatives in congress. It is interesting to examine 
Johnson's defense of this policy in answer to the charge of sym- 
pathy with the abolitionists which very naturally his enemies 
raised against him. He said that it was necessary to make the 
change for the very purpose of defending slavery. If the non- 
slaveholders of East Tennessee were satisfied within the state 
it would be the best means of preventing antislavery tendencies 
and making the state united. Against slaveholders as a superior 
class he frequently expressed himself in vigorous terms. But 
so far as I know his speeches and private letters reveal little or 
no sympathy with anything like abohtion and his dislike of the 
abolitionists in general and of the New England sort in particu- 
lar appears to have been thorough. 

Such was Andrew Johnson when he entered congress in De- 
cember, 1843, in the same session in which Stephen A. Douglas 
and Howell Cobb also began their congressional service. But 
whereas Douglas was at once placed at the head of a select 
committee to investigate a matter of apportionment, and thus 
brought into a conspicuous position, Johnson was given only a 
place in the committee on claims and in the committee on expen- 
ditures in the war department. In his first session he paid his 
tribute to party regularity in the debate on remitting the fine 
levied on General Jackson by Judge Hall of New Orleans and 
took part in the sectional struggle over the reception of abolition 
petitions which was now marked by the baiting of John Quincy 
Adams. Johnson accused the north of conspiring to break up 
the union through its attack on the south. "But when we of the 



274 St. George L. Sioussat m.v.h.k. 

South," he said, *Svho represent the interests of the slave states, 
contend for our rights Gentlemen say 'Oh you are too much ex- 
cited, too much heated' . . ." He denounced the famous 
statement of Adams in the last congress, that in case of a ser- 
vile war the free states if called in to suppress insurrection in 
the south might establish emancipation.^^ At a later time a 
friendly editor said^^ that John Quincy Adams had declared 
Johnson to be possessed of more native ability than any man in 
the house of representatives. The literal exactness of this re- 
port may well be doubted ; but in the memoir of Adams there is 
found an expression of appreciation for Johnson's support in 
a matter of parliamentary detail.^* 

While always in line with his party as against the whigs, 
Johnson nevertheless appears to have taken every possible op- 
portunity to manifest his independence of the party leaders. 
Thus it happened that Stephen A. Douglas, Jefferson Davis, 
and Thomas H. Bayley of Virginia all felt the lash of Johnson's 
tongue. With these as with many of the whig leaders the occa- 
sion of ugly passages of debate was usually some sentiment or 
allusion which Johnson chose to consider as in some way reflect- 
ing upon the workingman. Again and again, sometimes it would 
seem with deliberate intent to pick a quarrel, or at least with a 
disposition to choose an unpleasant interpretation of a word, 
Johnson rose to declare himself the friend of the laborer. It is 
not hard to understand the bitterness with which such a man 
as Jefferson Davis, for instance, would remember such encoun- 
ters,^^ nor to see that Johnson's manner must have interfered 
with his success in the larger fields of politics. 

Quite as characteristic was the attitude of Johnson towards 
political matters. He supported all the measures of Polk's ad- 
ministration, but denounced the administration's plan to tax tea 
and coffee as oppressive of the poor. He conceived a bitter ani- 
mosity to the new Smithsonian institution, and historical students 
will doubtless place him in their black books because he opposed 

52 Congressional globe, 28 congress, 1 session, 212-214. 

53 Nashville Union, May 10, 1853. 

^* Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, comprising portions of his diary fro-m 1795 to 
1848, edited by Charles Francis Adams (Philadelphia, 1874-1877), 12: 240. 

55 Jefferson Davis, Eise and fall of the confederate government (New York, 1881), 
2 : 703 ; Varina B. H. Davis, Jefferson Davis, ex-president of the Confederate States 
of America; a memoir hy his xvifc (New York, [1890]), 1: 242 ff. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead h'ill I'Tr) 

appropriations for the relief of Mrs. Madison in the matter of 
the purchase of the Madison papers. He pressed with great en- 
ergy his belief that there was an unfair distribution of the offi- 
ces at the command of the executive,'"' urged that these should 
be divided in accordance with geographical regions and main- 
tained that farmers and meclianics should l)e given a larger 
proportion. He proposed that the members of the supreme court 
should be put upon the elective basis, supported the familiar 
amendment which looked to changing the election of the presi- 
dent, and brought in one of the early amendments for the popular 
election of senators." 

Notwithstanding his radical principles, though one can hardly 
suppose it was because of them, .Johnson served five terms in the 
house of representatives. Various competitors canvassed his dis- 
trict against him, of w^hom the most bitter in personal animosity 
was William Gr. Brownlow who poured upon Johnson all the poli- 
ce The exercise of the executive patronage and Jolinson 's discontent tl'.erewith 
formed the subject of an earnest conversation between .Johnson and President Polk. 
The diary of James K. Polk during his presidency, 1845 to 1849, edited by Milo M. 
Quaife (Chicago, 1910), 2:35-41. 

57 Nashville Union, May 21, 1849, citing ' ' Gallery of portraits of past and present 
members of congress," No. 1, in New York Sunday Times, gave an extended sketch 
of Andrew Johnson, from which the following paragraph is taken: 

"Owing to the want of early advantages, of which I have wi-itten above, Mr. .J. at 
times slashes his mother-tongue, — pronouncing words of many syllables, or of recent 
foreign derivation, with little regard to rules laid down by Walker or Webster. More 
or less of his fellow-members will titter and sneer at Mr. J. 's many false anglicisms; 
yet I have rarely seen it done, save by someone smarting under the point of his ora- 
torical bowie-knife. Though expressed in uncouth phraseology, his views are easily 
understood; for he talks strong thoughts and carefully culled facts in quick succes- 
sion. He thrusts his opponents through and through, as with a rusty and jagged 
weapon, tearing a big wound and leaving something behind to fester and be remem- 
bered. Woe be unto the luckless wight who offers him a personal indignity — casts 
a slur upon him, in debate; for if he has to wait two years for the opportunity, when 
it does come, Mr. J. makes the best use of it. He puts no bridle upon his tongue; 
yet he is never guilty of a personal disrespect to a fellow-member, or even to the 
opposite party as a whole. Perhaps I may fairly characterize his efforts as being 
slashingly crushing, for he chops to mince-meat and then grinds to powder the men, 
measures and principles he may be contending against. He takes and maintains 
positions at times, which I can hear no other man advocate without feeling morally 
sure that the man is speaking without the least regard to the effect of his words upon 
hia own prospects as a public man. He is emphatically the Ledru-RoUin of the 
House — that is, if Mr. Ledru-Rollin is an honest man. Mr. Johnson is, however, 
by no means afflicted with socialism. He would be the last man in the House to 
sanction the robbery of either class in society to pension any other class — not he." 



276 ,5'^. George L. Sioussat m. v. h. k. 

tical vitriol of which he had so vast a supply and whom Johnson 
in return described as a ''hyena." This domination of his district 
by Johnson was overthrown, not by any opponent, but by a gerry- 
mander which the whigs arranged in 1852 with the deliberate 
intention of depriving Johnson of his seat. His answer to the 
challenge was to make the race for the governorship. Not only 
did he succeed but for the first time in a number of years a re- 
election followed. At the end of his second term he was able 
to bring to pass his election as senator ; two years later he select- 
ed the other democratic senator, and in 1860 his name for several 
ballots was presented as that of a "favorite son" in nomination 
for the presidency by the Tennessee delegation in the Charles- 
ton convention. When one realizes that this political progress 
was maintained in spite of the opposition secret or open of many 
of the democratic leaders in the central and western parts of the 
state one sees all the more clearly the power that Johnson ex- 
erted over the mass of the voters in the state as a whole. 

The congressional contest in which Brownlow sought to defeat 
Johnson was that of 1845. In answer to the attacks of Brownlow 
Johnson pursued the very customary course of issuing an ad- 
dress to his constituents. This was full of bitter controversial 
matter which, beyond one statement, is of no significance here. 
He attacked one of the community who, he said, "is violently 
opposed to me no doubt because I am too much the poor man's 
friend; because I, while a member of the Twenty-eighth Con- 
gress, was in favor of giving to every man, who could not raise 
a sum of money sufficient to pay the government price for the 
public land, a certain number of acres, (the numbers of acres 
though to be regulated in proportion to the number of children 
in family,) free of charge, by his moving to and settling upon it. 
While I have been standing by the poor man in getting him a 
home that he could call his, it will not be out of place, in this con- 
nexion, to ascertain what the opinions are of those who have been 
trying to crush me in the estimation of the people. "^^ 

The paternity of great public measures is often as much dis- 
puted as Homer's birthplace; and the parentage of the home- 
stead bill has been claimed for many persons.^^ In a very schol- 

58 Letter of Andrew Johnson to Ms constituents. 

59 This has been due in part to a failure to distinguish carefully the homestead 
principle from that of the "log cabin" bill. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson atid the Homestead Bill 277 

arly dissertation the latest writer upon this period in llic his- 
tory of the public lands, Mr. George M. Stephenson, has duly 
noted the resolution introduced January 4, 1844, in the courses 
of the first session of the twenty-eighth congress, which was to 
instruct the committee on public lands to inciuire into tiie ex- 
pediency of passing a law to donate eighty acres of land to every 
actual settler "being the head of a family and living with the 
same and not now the owner of land and who through misfor- 
tune or otherwise is unable to purchase," This resolution was 
submitted by Robert Smith of Illinois. But Mr. Stephenson 
does not call attention to the fact that these lands were to be 
selected from those which had been ten years on the market, 
that is, lands of presumably inferior quality.'"" In the second ses- 
sion of this congress an amendment to the graduation bill, pro- 
posed by Thomasson of Kentucky, undertook to donate to every 
actual settler ''being the head of a family" forty acres. It ap- 
pears from the debate that this, too, had reference to lands that 
had previously been offered for sale.®^ In the first session of the 
twenty-ninth congress, however, independent homestead bills 
were introduced by Felix Grundy McConnell of Alabama and 
by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee."' It was at this session, as 
we have made clear above, that the graduation and reduction 
bill came so near passing; and both the bill of McConnell and 
that of Johnson,*'^ together with the two earlier propositions 

60 Stephenson, Political history of the public lands, from 1840 to 186S, from pre- 
emption to Jwmestead, 116; Congressional globe, 28 congress, 1 session. 103. In the 
following session, when the graduation bill was (lel>ate(l at length, Smith, on Decem- 
ber 27, 1844, made a speech in reply to Causin of Maryland, who had upheld the 
eastern point of view. Ibid., 28 congress, 2 session, 69 ff. In the first session of 
the next congress, on July 9, 1846, he made another extended speech on graduation, 
in which he referred to his resolution introduced in 1844. Ibid., 29 congress, 1 ses- 
sion, 1062 ff. 

61 Ibid., 28 congress, 2 session, 241. Cf. J. B. Sanborn, * ' Some political aspects 
of homestead legislation," in American liLstorical review, 6: 27. 

62 McConnell asked permission to introduce his bill January 9, 1846. Congres- 
sional globe, 29 congress, 1 session, 172. Jolmson asked anotlier member to waive a 
motion which he wished to offer, to allow him (Johnson) to introduce his bill, but 
failed (March 9). Ibid., 472. On March 12 he asked leave of the house to intro- 
duce the bill. Ibid., 492. On March 27 he introduced the bill. Ibid., 563. A copy 
of this bill (H. R. No. 319) was kept by Andrew Johnson and is still with a number 
of printed homestead bills in the Johnson papers, library of congress. 

63 On December 11, 1845, Ficklin of Illinois also submitted a bill to grant lands to 
actual settlers "under certain limitations." Congressional globe, 29 congress, 1 
session, 43. The content of the bill does not appear. 



278 St. George L. Sioussat m. v. h. e. 

mentioned, were closely connected with the parliamentary course 
of that measure and illustrated what we have called the west- 
ern point of view. Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama 
pretty well represent that section of the country.''* But among 
the petitions of 1844-1845 is one presented by Severance of 
Maine from Dudly P. Bailey and forty others of the same state 
requesting that congress ''should pass with all convenient haste, 
a law by which every citizen, who may be desirous of cultivat- 
ing the earth for a living, shall be enabled to enter upon the pub- 
lic lands and occupy a reasonable sized farm thereon free of 
cost. "'^'^ A similar petition from Alleghany county, Pennsyl- 
vania, was presented January 30, 1846, by Darragh of that 
state '^^ and a few days later Herrick of New York presented a 
memorial of the National Reform association with regard to the 
public land which was referred but not printed.*'^ Herein are 
seen early manifestations of the radical eastern propaganda.''^ 
McConnell, who seems to have been regarded by the house as 
something of a wit and to have been taken not very seriously, 
tried several times early in the session to introduce his bill which 
was to provide a home for "every man, maid or widow being 
the head of a family. ' ' '^^ The last time he used the word ' ' home- 
stead r"'^'' but this does not seem to have been in general use at 
this time. Andrew Johnson, many years later, claimed that his 
introduction of the bill antedated that of McConnell,^^ but it 
appears that McConnell really made the first efforts. ^^ Both 

64 Thomasson, however, expressed a desire to remove the lands from the national 
treasury because he did not wish revenue from the public domain to break down the 
tariff. 

65 January 3, 1845. Ibid., 28 congress, 2 session, 89. 

66 Ibid., 29 congress, 1 session, 283. 

67 March 9, 1846. Ibid., 471. 

68 The plans of Johnson and McConnell both fell short of the demands of the land 
reformers. Documentary history of American industrial society (Commons and asso- 
ciates ed.), 8: 64-65. 

69 Congressional globe, 29 congress, 1 session, 172 (January 9), 420 (February 24), 
473 (March 9), 558 (March 26), 1045 (July 1). 

-loihid., 1063 (July 6). 

71 Ibid., 35 congress, 1 session, 3043. 

72 It was the advice to his students of a great teacher of history, Herbert B. 
Adams, to ' ' avoid the use of the superlative. ' ' This applies, in general, to the 
efforts of historical writers to locate the "first" appearance of an idea; and, in par- 
ticular, to the authorship or ' ' fatherhood ' ' of the homestead bill. Ten years before 
the period under consideration a Mississippi representative in congress, Franklin E. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and iJic Homestead Bill 279 

Johnson and McConnell tried also to tack tlieir measures on to 
the graduation bill, in the form of an aiiK'iidmciit,'' and McCon- 
nell made similar efforts in coimeclioii \vith otiier bills. 

Within a few months McConnell committed suicide. Johnson 
continued in congress and therefore had the advantage of mak- 
ing repeated efforts to secure consideration for his bill. 

The suggestions of giving grants of land to settlers which in 
the forms of petitions, resolutions, separate ))ills or amendments 
to the graduation and reduction bill had in 1844-1846 ushered in 
the beginnings of the homestead discussion were not followed 
up decisively in the congress of 1847-1849. The political mal- 
adjustment caused by the election of a whig house of repre- 
sentatives, the agitation over the Wilmot proviso, the bickering 
over the conduct of the Mexican war and the influence of the 
bounty law all acted unfavorably. But the agitation of the 
eastern radicals was having its effect. In the presidential cam- 
paign of 1848 the land reformers tried to enlist Martin Van 
Buren in their cause ; but that wily politician and even the f ram- 
ers of the Buffalo platform were afraid to come out clearly for 
the full program of Evans and his followers. The Buffalo plat- 
form did include a homestead plank. Van Buren, however, de- 
clared himself not ready to assent to the free gift of the public 
lands. On the other hand Greeley gave his support to General 
Taylor and the regular whig ticket. Thus the adherents of land 

Plummer, a native of Massachusetts, presented a petition of sundry citizens of Mis- 
sissippi and made a speech thereon. The petition prayed for a law granting to each 
native citizen of the United States not already a landholder and who was not worth 
five hundred dollars, 160 acres of land on condition of settlement and continued cul- 
tivation for the period of five years. In his speech upon the petition Plummer said 
the condition of white men too poor to purchase a home was worse than that of the 
Indians. The petitioners were thankful for the preemption laws, but asked for 
donations. They pointed out that the Mexican republic was holding out actual dona- 
tions of land to settlers and that many would be compelled to seek in a distant land 
a home which they could not obtain here. Plummer condemned the United States 
government as the only nation on earth that ever adopted a policy of holding up its 
waste and unappropriated lands as a source of revenue except for some temporary 
reason. This may stand as the "first" congressional proposal of a real homestead 
measure, — • until someone discovers an earlier one. Register of debates in congress, 
1834-1835, 11: part 2, 1566-1570. 

"J^ Congressional globe, 29 congress, 1 session, 1077 (Johnson, July 10); 1192 (Mc- 
Connell, August 4); 1200 (McConnell, August 6, on the Oregon bill). The bill of 
Johnson is reprinted in Documentary history of American industrial society (Com- 
mons and associates, ed.), 8: 62-64. 



280 St. George L. Sioussat m. v. h. r. 

reform were divided/* Though in the east the homestead idea 
found friends in several political groups, no effective political 
organization made the measure exclusively its own. Thus in 
this period the history of the homestead bill had for the time a 
nonpartisan aspect different from that of the graduation bill 
in the campaign of four years before. 

After the election the homestead principle again appeared in 
the house in two bills differing in content, the one submitted by 
Andrew Johnson, the other by Horace Greeley, a member of this 
congress. During this short session Johnson through illness 
was unable to look after his bill ; and so he placed it in the care of 
his Tennessee colleague George W. Jones.'^^ Jones accomplished 
nothing, and Greeley's bill was speedily tabled.^*' Greeley left 
congress, but Johnson had taken a fresh start and at every ses- 
sion during the remainder of his membership in the house of 
representatives he introduced a homestead bill in one form or 
another. In the thirty-first congress, that of the compromise of 
1850, he had played a part of some importance in the election 
of Cobb as speaker, and for the first time was given the chair- 
manship of a committee, — that on public expenditures.^^ Wlien 
he found the committee on public lands predisposed in favor of 
its own measure of graduating and reducing the price of the 
public lands, he tried the unusual expedient of reporting his bill 
from the committee on public expenditures, — his own commit- 
tee. This naturally aroused instant protest. It was insisted 
that such a bill should go to the committee on public lands.^^ He 

"4 See note 46 above, and Stephenson, Political history of the 'public lands, from 
1840 to 1862, from pre-emption to homestead, 135-139. Theodore 0. Smith, in his 
The liberty and free soil parties in the northwest (New York, 1897), discusses the 
election of 1848, but has little to say of the relation thereto of the question of the 
public lands. 

75 Johnson gave notice of his bill December 11, 1848. Congressional globe, 30 con- 
gress, 2 session, 25. Jones tried to introduce the bill February 14, 16, 1849. Hid., 
534, 548. 

76 The bill was tabled by a viva voce vote February 27, 1849. Ibid., 605. There 
was also a bill presented by E. Embree of Indiana, February 5, 1849. Ibid., 454. 

77 Ibid., 31 congress, 1 session, 88. Two years later he resigned this post, on the 
ground that he had nothing to do. 

78 He gave notice January 7, 1850. Ibid., 131. On February 25 he reported the 
bill from his own committee. Ibid., 408. Securing unanimous consent he intro- 
duced his bill February 27, and asked that it be referred to the committee on agri- 
culture. This was refused and the bill was referred to the committee on public lands. 
Ibid., 423, 424. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and flic Homestead BUI 281 

then tried a new tack. Finding more friendly some of the com- 
mittee on agriculture, lie changed the title of his hill so that it 
purported to he one to encourage agricnlhire. Tliis committee 
got the bill 1)efore the house, and Johnson proceeded, on July 
25, 1850, to make his first speech upon the ])ill/" He distinctly 
stated that this hill was a homestead hill, and remarked that 
when first introduced some five years ago it was considered 
wild and visionary. But now the public mind had lieen directed 
toward the measure and the most prominent men of the country 
were vying with each other in support of it. Senators "posses- 
sing the tallest intellect" had entered the competition. He 
wished it to be distinctly understood that he was ''no agrarian, 
no leveller, as they were termed in modern times," He wished 
to elevate, not to pull down. In support of his proposition he 
cited Moses, Vattel, and Andrew Jackson, a somewhat curious 
combination of authorities. When he argued that the domain of 
United States belonged to the people as a whole, as much as the 
other great elements, air, fire, water, he was coming pretty close 
to the ideas of the land reformers. 

Johnson's bill did not come to a vote.^° But that a change was 
developing in the estimate which the public mind placed 
on this measure was manifested in the presentation in the senate 
of various propositions by Seward, Douglas, Webster and Sam 
Houston,*^ while AValker of Wisconsin suggested a combination 
of a homestead plan with one of cession to the states.^- Seward 's 
resolution looked to a grant of land to the exiles from Hungary ; 
and it was over this phase of the question that most of the de- 
bate took place. 

In the short session of 1850-1851 Johnson again introduced 

79 He gave notice of the new bill March 4, and June 4 it was introduced and re- 
ferred. Ibid., 448, 1122. The committee on agriculture reported the bill and John- 
son spoke on July 25. His speech is given at length in ibid., appendix, 2: 950-952. 

80 A bill proposed by Moore of Pennsylvania ' ' to discourage speculation in the 
public lands" was also a homestead bill. Ibid., 139, 424. 

81 For Douglas see ibid., 75, 87 (December 24, 27, 1849). On December 24 (ibid., 
75) Cass had introduced a resolution looking to tlie severance of diplomatic relations 
with Austria. Seward 's resolution to grant land from the public domain for the 
Hungarian exiles was offered January 9, 1850. Ibid., 128. On January 22, Webster 
moved his resolutions which on March 28, on his own motion, were postponed. Ibid., 
616. Houston's proposal was made January 30. Ibid., 262. 

82 December 24, 1849. Ibid., 74. 



282 St. George L. Sioussat m.v.h.r. 

his bill,®^ as did Walker in the senate. This time Johnson was 
supported by George W. Julian, who acknowledged** his debt 
to Johnson for the opportunity of making a speech. But future 
dangers in the way of the bill were made evident when Julian 
combined with his advocacy of the homestead bill an out and out 
abolition argument very unflattering to the soutli.*^ 

The first session of the next congress, the thirty-second, im- 
mediately preceded the presidential canvass of 1852. A home- 
stead bill finally passed in the house of representatives, notwith- 
standing the rivalry of a new form of distribution proposed by 
Bennett and very favorably received, and also an amendment 
skilfully urged by Cobb of Alabama, who professed friendship 
to the homestead principle. There was a long and interesting 
debate,^^ which revealed the importance which the bill had now 
attained. Early in April Johnson wrote to his friend Patterson 
''The 'Homestead' will pass without doubt unless some influ- 
ence is brought to bear against is not now seen or known to 
exist. Various M.C. who were considered against it during the 
last Congress are now for it, viz. Toombs, Stephens, Venable, 
etc. The mongers in land warrants are opperating [sic] to some 
extent against it. I think in the end that can be turned to good 
account. ' ' ®^ 

In connection with the work of this session we have the most 
complete evidence of the relations that existed between Johnson 
and the land reformers of New York who, through the assistance 
of Greeley, were insistent in their pressure upon congress. 
Shortly after the bill had passed the house of representatives 

83 This session was marked by a considerable persistence on Johnson 's part, and 
by evidences of opposition to the introduction of the bill on the part of those who 
controlled the house. Ibid., 31 congress, 2 session, 22, 76, 94, 204, 216, 365, 752. 

84 George W. Julian, Political recollections, 1840 to 1872 (Chicago, 1884), 103-104. 

85 January 29, 1851. Congressional globe, 31 congress, 2 session, appendix, 135. 

86 The bill passed the house May 12, 1852. Ibid., 32 congress, 1 session, 1348 ff. 
The course of the debate on the bill may be traced by the indexes to the Congres- 
sional globe and appendix. Well chosen selections are printed in Documentary his- 
tory of American industrial society (Commons and associates ed.), 8: 65-78. Among 
the members of this house who took up the cause of the homestead bill was Galusha 
A. Grow of Pennsylvania, then serving his first term. Grow was the youngest mem- 
ber of this congress. His biographers point out the fact that he became a disciple 
of Thomas Hart Benton, then a member of the house. James T. DuBois and Gert- 
rude S. Mathews, Galusha A. Grow, father of the homestead law (Boston, 1917). 

87 Andrew Johnson to D. T. Patterson, April 4, 1852. Johnson papers, library of 
congress. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson <nul fhr Ilomrsfcdd Hill 283 

a mass meeting was arranged in New York, a.s to which Ainlrew 
Johnson, along with otlier prominent supporters of the measure 
in congress, was consulted, lie wrote to Evans and the com- 
mittee on invitation on May 24 in high api)roval of the meeting, 
but characteristically urged "I hope you will have your meeting 
gotten up as a 'Homestead' galhering, not connecti'd with any 
of the isms of the day."^** It developed, however, that lie not 
merely wrote a sympathetic letter, but attended the meeting and 
made the principal speech. According to plan the audience 
gathered in the park on the afternoon of May 27, l)ut was soon 
driven by a rainstorm to take refuge in the rotunda of the city 
hall. The crowd of hearers was described by the Tribune as 
large and enthusiastic; Greeley gave an extensive summary of 
Johnson's speech, and editorially praised it in terms that were 
warm and sincere.^*^ Several weeks later Johnson wrote to a 
friend "I was in New York some time since. ... I had 
quite a pleasant time of it in the Empire City, was treated there 
with marked kindness and attention."^" 

But the senate was deaf to outside appeals and 'ofused to pass 
the bill.^^ Though he came from a western stat^, and though 
the w^est was now becoming nearly unanimous for the "Homestead, 
Felch, of Michigan, chairman of the senate committee on public 
lands, was unfriendly and found support in a special communi- 
cation from John Wilson, the commissioner of the general land 
oflice. This included a criticism of the phraseology of the bill 
as submitted to him, and suggestions for improvement in this 

ss New York Daily Tribune, May 28, 1852. In the course of Andrew Johnson's 
canvas for reelection to the governorship of Tennessee, in 1855, his affiliation with 
the "land reformers" was brought up against him by his political opponents as 
proof of his disorganizing and revolutionary doctrines. It was charged that his 
first message as governor had been copied from the "Address to the voters of the 
United States" put forth by the industrial congress of 1852, and his presence at the 
later sessions of the congress and his association with Gerrit Smith, Seward, Chase, 
Sumner and I. P. Walker of Wisconsin was used in tlie attempt to discredit him at 
home. Bepublican Banner and Nashville Whig, July 14, 1855. At the session of the 
industrial congress held in Albany, New York, at which I. P. Walker was nominated 
for the presidency, Johnson received three votes for that nomination on the first 
ballot, and his friend A. O. P. Nicholson, who had expressed very liberal views on 
the land question, received two votes. New York Daily Tribune, June 9, 1851. 

89 New York Daily Tribune, May 28, 1852. 

90 Andrew Johnson to S. Milligan, July 20, 1852, manuscript in Pennsylvania his- 
torical society. 

91 Congressional globe, 32 congress, 1 session, 1.352, 1521, 2100, 2266. 



284 St. George L. Sioussat M- ^'- h. R. 

respect, and also an opinion as to tlie merits of the measure as 
a whole, which was very unfavorable and brought up all the 
standard objections, — that the bill would involve a great loss of 
revenue, that this would involve a higher tariff or direct taxa- 
tion, that the public lands were pledged by congress for the pay- 
ment of the public debt, that the contracts with the states made 
upon their admission to the union would be impaired, that there 
was no discrimination as to the lands open to selection, so that 
mineral lands would be included, that no great national object 
was proposed, that the country would be deprived of this vast 
resource in the case of future wars, and that congress would 
draw on themselves an influence as irresistible as the force of 
gravitation,^^ These criticisms suggest other phases of the his- 
tory of the public lands very closely interwoven with the polit- 
ical fortunes of the homestead bill, into the detailed considera- 
tion of which, in this paper, it has been impossible to enter.®^ 
The appropriation of vast quantities of land by the several 
bounty laws has been noticed ; the extensive grants to railroads 
were already begun ; California and the new territories presented 
their peculiar problems ; it had been proposed to make gifts to 
hospitals for the indigent insane. Even more dangerous to the 
peaceful progress of the homestead bill was the sectional ani- 
mosity threatened when Mason of Virginia identified the agita- 
tion for the homestead with the candidacy of John P. Hale for 
the presidency.''* The increasing devotion to the measure of 
those who were attacking the institutions of the south was sure 
to turn southern support to southern hostility. Greeley claimed, 
however, that in the house more southern members voted for 
the bill than against it:^^ and in his New York speech Johnson 

92 John Wilson, acting commissioner, to A. Felch, June 18, 1852. House of repre- 
sentatives papers, library of congress. 

93 For the political history of these years see Stephenson, Political history of the 
public lands, from 1840 to 1862, from pre-emption to homestead, chs. 10, 11; and 
for a less dependable account, Dubois and Matthews, Galusha A. Grow, father of the 
Jwmestead law, ch. 4. Cf. also John B. Sanborn, Congressional grants of land in aid 
of railways (Madison, 1899), and "Some political aspects of homestead legislation," 
in American historical review, 6: 19 ff. ; L. H. Haney, A congressional history of 
railways in the United States to 1860 (Madison, 1908), and A congressional history 
of railways in the United States, 1850-1887 (Madison, 1910) ; Benjamin W. Palmer, 
Swamp land drainage with special reference to Minnesota (University of Minnesota 
Bulletin — Minneapolis, 1915) ; Orfield, Federal land grants to the states with special 
reference to Minnesota. 

9* Congressional globe, 32 congress, 1 session, 2267. 
95 New York Daily Tribune, May 28, 1852, 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and (he Homestead Bill 285 

had eloquently pleaded llic nonpartisan character of the mea- 
sure. 

The victory of Pierce, while favorable to the .success of the 
graduation and reduction bill, was not encouraging for the 
homestead. In the short session that preceded the inauguration 
of Pierce the bill was again introduced in both houses, but again 
the result was failure."" At the close of this session, as has al- 
ready been said, Andrew Johnson left the house of representa- 
tives to serve four years as governor of Tennessee an<l tlien to 
return as senator to the congress of the United States. 

Coinciding in point of time with the beginning of the Pierce 
administration, the withdrawal of Johnson from the house de- 
fines a period in the history of the bill as well as in that of his 
own career. Reviewing what has been narrated we find that the 
homestead bill had its origin in a combination of forces. On 
the one hand it was an offshoot of the demand of the settler of the 
west for a further modification of the land system, and devel- 
oped out of the proposal for graduating and reducing the price 
of the public lands. This policy of graduation was western, 
even southw^estern, in its source, and politically w^as connected 
with the regime of Jacksonian democracy. But the homestead 
idea differed from the Bentonian scheme; and the difference 
consisted in the very elements which were embodied in the radi- 
cal agrarianism of the eastern labor movement. With reference 
to the work of Evans Mr. Commons has written: "Not for 
the sake of those who moved \vest did Evans advocate freedom 
of the public lands, but for the sake of those who remained east. 
This was the idea that he added to the idea of Andrew Jackson 
and Andrew Johnson."" This identification of the attitude of 
Jackson and the attitude of Johnson seems to be mistaken. 
Johnson, who represented a soutlnvestern state, was possessed 
of ideas very similar to those of the land reformers, if not de- 
rived therefrom, and it is just this fact that makes distinctive 
his contribution. Originally opposed even to the further reduc- 

96 The later phases of the bill to 1862 are discussed by Sanborn. Congressional 
grants of land in aid of raUivays; by DuEois and Mathews, Galusha A. Grow, father 
of the homestead laiv (with some exaggeration of the part jdayed by Grow) ; and by 
Stephenson, Political history of the public land^, from 1840 to 1S6S, from pre-emption 
to homestead, ehs. 12-15. 

^'^Documentary history of American industrial society (Commons and associates 
ed.), 7: introduction, 31. 



286 St. George L. Sioussat ^- V- «• R. 

tion of tlie price of the public lands, opinion in the east was 
converted to the abandonment of the revenue policy for that of 
free grants. The earlier phases of the homestead movement 
brought to pass this change and the fusion of the eastern and the 
western points of view. In the accomplishment of this Andrew 
Johnson, of East Tennessee, played an important part. Not the 
inventor of the homestead idea, which can hardly be said to have 
been invented at all, and probably not the first to introduce the 
proposed legislation in congress, he was the first practical poli- 
tician to make this policy particularly his own and persistently 
to force it upon the attention of congress. 

In 1850 Johnson had written to his son-in-law: ''I have 
strong hopes of getting the homestead bill through this winter. 
If I do I shall die happy. ' ' ^® He had now found reinforcement 
in the east, to whose artisan classes his personal appeal might 
one day be powerful. He could count certainly on some support 
from the south and southwest. The northwest was of all sec- 
tions the one most certain to approve of the homestead bill. It 
must have been with some bitterness, therefore, that he left the 
house of representatives with his work yet uncompleted. But if 
it seemed hard to leave to others to reap the field where he had 
borne the burden and heat of the day, Johnson had at least 
brought it to pass that he himself was recognized as responsible 
for the success which thus far had been accomplished. On Feb- 
ruary 24, 1853, Senator Dodge of Iowa, replying to Senators 
Charlton and Dawson of Georgia who had opposed the home- 
stead bill of this session, gave an historical retrospect concern- 
ing the bill in which he appealed particularly to the southern 
origin both of the principles of the bill and of the emigrants who 
profited by it. He quoted Macon of North Carolina, pointed 
out the support given by men of that type in North Carolina and 
Virginia to Benton's graduation bill which had passed the sen- 
ate more than twenty-five years before with a provision for 
donating the refuse lands to actual cultivators. ''After a seven 
years' struggle of the people's representatives in "the other 
house" the homestead bill "thus assailed in advance in this 
body, passed. And I now have in my eye its indefatigable and 

98 Andrew Johnson to D. T. Patterson, December 23, 1850. Johnson papers, 
library of congress. 



Vol. V, No. 3 Andrew Johnson and the Homestead Bill 287 

indomitable author, an esteemed friend and nienibcr of the 
House, (Hon. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee,) to whom, as one 
deeply sympathizing with liim in sentiment, I return my thanks 
as an Iowa man. He is the type of the men for wlioni this bill is 
intended — now a most able and faithful member of Congress, 
once a mechanic struggling with poverty and working with the 
hands which God gave him, and expending tliat sweat l)y which 
it was the decree of the Almighty that man should obtain his 
bread. "«' 

As the career of Andrew Johnson peculiarly illustrates the 
opportunity which democracy in this country has offered, so the 
evolution of our land system, though accompanied by much that 
has been costly and wasteful, has yet been an evidence of the 
workings of self government. In the past the influence of the 
frontier, with its opportunity for the easy acquisition of lands, 
has been potent as a factor distinguishing American conditions 
from those in the old world. Now, the era of free land has about 
ended, and there is no longer the vast domain of unbroken prai- 
rie that was open for the operation of the homestead law. But 
it is hardly to be doubted that the land problem will remain, 
appearing in new phases, the solution of which will tax the best 
efforts of those who will devote themselves to the great recon- 
struction that must follow the present war ; in which, as in the 
successful conclusion of military effort, the United States \vi\\, 
we know, play a part worthy of its vast power. 

^ St. George L. Sioussat. 

Brown University 
Providence, Rhode Island 

99 Congressional glohe, 32 congress, 2 session, appendix, 202. 



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